As the US Targets the Philippines: Defend Jose Maria Sison!

With the US poised to attack Iraq, another US military operation is underway — and it's largely under the radar of the larger anti-war movement. Currently, the US armed forces have thousands of troops stationed in the Republic of the Philippines, supposedly to battle the reactionary bandit group Abu Sayyaf. As many observers had predicted, these US troops are now beginning to target the popular insurgency led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military wing, the New People's Army (NPA). Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the US is assaulting the revolutionary left and progressive forces around the world. The Bush administration is using the Philippines as a test case to see how much aggression it can get away with.

On August 9, 2002 the CPP and the NPA were put on the US government's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, even though both organizations have strict policies of upholding human rights and have always abided by the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I (international law in situations of internal armed conflict). The CPP/NPA, far from being terrorists, undertake popular campaigns to mobilize the Filipino people for land reform, public education, literacy, health and sanitation, and cultural activities. Both organizations operate in the larger National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Despite the crackdown against the NDFP, this movement is growing rapidly. A broadening layer of Filipinos understand the need to fight against their government's capitulation to the US that has left most of the Filipino people, especially in the rural areas, in deep poverty and misery.

In sharp contrast to the forces of the NDFP, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, acting as a client state for US interests in the Philippines, has consistently sponsored right-wing death squads and terrorized its own people. The Abu Sayyaf have provided an excuse for the Philippine and US militaries to target activists and other innocent people. The decision of Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to go along with Bush's "War on Terror" has the Philippines on the brink of a return to martial law. In just the past year, 23 leaders of the legal opposition political party Bayan Muna have been killed in an undeclared war on all progressive Filipinos. One target of this war is the exiled revolutionary leader, Professor Jose Maria Sison.

JoMa Sison became a leader of the Philippines struggle in the '60s.

Who is JoMa Sison?

Sison, the founder and the first chairman of the CPP and a continuing consultant to the NDFP, is being targeted for extradition to the US—even though JoMa, as he is popularly known, has not been charged with any crime. Sison, jailed and tortured under the Marcos dictatorship for nine years, has been the target of subsequent US-backed regimes in the Philippines. He and his family have been living in exile for the past fourteen years in the Netherlands. Now, as of October 28, the European Union, under heavy US pressure, has also added Sison and the NPA to its own list of "terrorists." This decision was made with no discussion or due process.

The Dutch government has put the whole Sison family in its crosshairs. The Sisons have lost the housing and the allowance for food and other basic necessities that the Netherlands extends to political refugees. In addition, JoMa has also had his bank account frozen. In response, a worldwide campaign is developing to stop the harassment and extradition of Sison.

Tasks Before the Movement

While Iraq clearly has center stage in the anti-war movement at present, we need to develop a broader movement—one that can also respond to the assault going on right now in the Philippines, Palestine, and Colombia and can begin to roll back the advances of global imperialism. The Philippines in particular is being targeted because of its strategic importance to the rulers of the US as a military and economic staging area for reaching all of East Asia, especially China. If we want the current wave of anti-war sentiment in this country to develop the momentum and staying power required to take on Bush's whole endless, borderless "War on Terrorism," it will have to be more than a peace movement. It will have to become an anti-intervention movement.

Defending the movement in the Philippines has to be firmly on the agenda of our own movement, and it is the task of progressive Filipinos and their supporters to put it there. There is no doubt that progressive Filipinos will be facing stepped up and coordinated repression, not only in the Philippines but also in the US and the other nations where millions of them have moved, fleeing repression and poverty. Sison will not be alone.

Activists in the US should be actively preparing for this crackdown—and sooner rather then later. It is also essential that we organize to demand that the CPP and the NPA be removed from US and European "terrorist" lists. In particular, we must demand an end to the harassment of JoMa Sison and the broader Filipino left internationally. To the extent that the US government is allowed to paint national liberation organizations as terrorists in the Philippines, they can—and will—do it elsewhere. A victory protecting Sison and getting the CPP/NPA off the US government's hit list will be a profound victory for the left internationally.

To get more information or to support Sison and the Left in the Philippines, contact www.defendsison.be.